SAP Acquires Pilot Software

With this “tuck-in” acquisition, SAP is adding a critical piece to its portfolio of analytic applications and furthering its commitment to provide C-level executives with the tools necessary for effective performance management by fostering alignment across their organizations. By aligning strategy with execution, organizations are able to improve corporate performance, accelerate management decision-making, facilitate collaboration and turn information into value.Founded in 2002, Pilot Software has more than 150 customers worldwide utilizing its strategy management solutions across a variety of industries including financial services, public sector, retail and many others. Pilot’s flagship product, PilotWorks, helps organizations empower their employees to effectively execute on strategies by aligning the three cornerstones of strategy management – goals, initiatives and metrics. Additionally, PilotWorks addresses executive requirements around managing goals, initiatives and metrics and codifying strategies to make them relevant to the daily business processes of information workers. The PilotWorks product will be integrated with SAP applications and built on the SAP NetWeaver platform, allowing SAP customers to leverage their current investments in SAP solutions to gain new business value.“Analytic applications that help organizations manage their performance effectively represent a strategic area of investment for SAP as we continue to expand our leadership in this market,” said Doug Merritt, executive vice president and general manager, Suite Optimization, SAP. “With the acquisition of Pilot Software, we are providing an advanced system for defining and managing strategies that is integrated with the business processes of information workers. By providing contextually-relevant information to employees in a highly collaborative user experience, we are making strategy relevant to every employee in a company, thus bringing immediate value to a strong cross-section of our customer base.”Leveraging analytics to improve performance management has been among the top priorities of senior executives in the last five years and is an area in which SAP continues to broaden its portfolio and further strengthen its leadership position in the analytic applications market. With SAP’s analytic applications, C-level executives can make the most meaningful, confident decisions about their businesses by optimizing core business processes critical to their industries to deliver high performance. More critically, C-level executives can assure that the strategies codified in SAP’s analytic applications are translated into execution by their employees through tight integration with SAP’s core business applications such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM) and supply chain management (SCM). Designed around Web 2.0 technologies, analytic applications from SAP enable information workers to leverage their collective intelligence and work collaboratively to bridge the gap between strategy and execution.“Pilot Software has had a strong focus on customer success, and now with the PilotWorks strategy management software becoming an integral part of SAP’s analytic offerings, organizations are empowered to achieve successful alignment across their organizations and achieve their performance objectives,” said Jonathan D. Becher, CEO and president, Pilot Software. “This is an exciting time for Pilot Software and its customers who will gain immediate value from the breadth of SAP’s portfolio.”The transaction with Pilot Software is continuing evidence of the SAP strategy to use “fill-in” acquisitions to add to its broad solution offering by gaining specific technologies and capabilities that meet the needs of its customers, within industries or across industries, while maintaining its successful track record of organic growth. Headquartered in Mountain View, California, Pilot Software provides solutions to customers around the world. While integration plans are still being finalized, SAP said it intended to continue operations in these offices and that Pilot Software employees would become part of the worldwide network of SAP Labs. The acquisition was completed on February 14, 2007. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.